‘I am a Guardian’ is a program that takes place every year in Barquisimeto (Venezuela) to train society on the prevention of child sexual abuse and violence against minors.

The organisation provides educational tools for teachers, church volunteers working with minors, counsellors and representatives of socio-cultural and artistic centres to ensure the safety of the most vulnerable.

The spokeswoman of the program, Aurimar De Santeliz, pointed out that every year they train over 450 guardians with theoretical and practical tools to prevent child abuse.

“The data we have are from Unicef, 4 out of 10 children are sexually abused every 15 seconds. Only 5% of abuses are reported; the other 95% is never quantified”, said the journalist, who stressed the importance of training society to fight this scourge.

Aurimar also reported that, in Venezuela, the states with the highest rates of child abuse are Lara and Zulia.

10 years of commitment

This year, ‘I am a Guardian’ celebrated its tenth anniversary at the headquarters of the Good News Multisede church, located west of Barquisimeto in the state of Lara, with the participation of several speakers specialised in the subject.

In addition to the usual content, they spoke about bullying, action protocols in health centres when facing open or suspected cases of sexual abuse, laws that regulate the legal field of child care, family placement and statutes to protect the family.

“We have been doing this training in person for ten years. It was done online twice because of the pandemic, but it was an opportunity to involve people from other countries” explained De Santeliz.

She added that in this decade, over 4,000 people have been trained in prevention of sexual abuse and violence against children.

She invited people to follow the work of the organisation on social media and to multiply efforts to fight the abuse that undermines the childhood.